MSC Opera Cruise Review by walkingbad: First Ever Cruise

MSC Opera

Overall Member Rating

First Ever Cruise

Sail Date:
July 2014
Destination:
Spain
Embarkation:
Southampton

We have just returned from our 1st ever cruise onboard the MSC Opera. Travelling with 3 children aged 12, 10, & 7. Although the food, staff and accommodation were very good, I found the entertainment for adults to be very boring. and the activities for children extremely poor. For this reason I do not think I would go with MSC again. There was literally nothing for the kids to do and they spent most of the holiday playing on their PSP's, iPads and Nintendo's. There was pool games and activities throughout the day at he poolside and in certain bars but they were all adult games and children were turned away and directed towards the kids club. the kids club was a great place if your children were aged 4 and under but for the older children, they felt as if the they were at nursery. there was also xbox's and wii's on board but under 12's were not allowed on these either making it a very long 10 days for the children on board between the ages of 4 and 12 years. The evening More
entertainment was also pretty pathetic. so there was not much to look forward to in the evenings.

I also felt that we had very little time in each of the ports. I do not know if this is the same for all cruise ships but the majority of ports we had to be back on onboard by 1:30 or 2:30 meaning our day at the ports was very rushed. The port of Guernsey could only be described as an utter shambles. Guest had to be transported off the boat by the lifeboats and were given a ticket (letter of the alphabet) and could only go at their allotted ticket. All guests had to be back on board for 4pm yet we were still waiting in the lounges to get off at 3:15. I was desperate for British food for my youngest son or else I wouldn't have bothered but it was an extremely poor service for the people who wanted to see Guernsey. MSC used their own lifeboats for this process and I think they should have used at least triple the amount to ensure all passengers got off and not just people who paid premiums for excursions. Lastly the port of Le Havre must be the most depressing place on the face of the earth. This port we stopped at for 12 hours and there was nothing to do here. The little shops that they had were all closed and most of the bars did not open until 6pm. Less